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The African rainbow is filled with different colors.

Julia and I were driven away from the campsite on a road that probably would not even qualify as a four-wheeler path in America, and we were both nervous. We were with our translator, Milton, and we were the first group to embark on the home-stay experience. We were about to live a day as a Masai.
We never met the “host,” or the man of the boma, in the sense that we had thought we would. The women, all of his wives, and the children kept us company.
When we woke up to goats baa-ing and staring at us inside our “encage,” or house, we had tea, or “shai” in Maa. We spent the morning shepherding. We brought cows and donkeys and goats to the man-made “dam” or watering hole so they could drink. Then we walked back to the boma and had tea. We watched the women bead; they made Julia a bracelet and necklace, and they made me a “nangangang,” or earrings connected to each other with a beard-like necklace. Then we had tea.
When we brought out crayons and paper, the 10 or 11-year-olds were drawing “real things” and labeling them in English and Maa. The young kids were scribbling. The adult women were scribbling like the babies, equally as enamored with the process and equally as uneducated as the children.
The kids learn by listening - Julia and I would sing a song, and the children would listen to it once and be able to sing it back to us, even in English. When they tried to teach us a song, we found it difficult to be able to recite the words so quickly after being introduced to them.
We were never bored, but the pace was surprisingly slow. We are so used to hyper-stimulation, to the innumerable amount of choices that present themselves in a day, to the possibility of connections; to have minimal activity was somehow tiring.
When we got back from the home-stay, we were relieved and excited to shower. We relaxed for a bit and then went back to work. Processing what we just lived through took some time. I’m pretty sure we’re not done yet. As other groups head out to their home-stays, we like to try to compare thoughts. Unfortunately, so much of it can’t be told. The whole experience was and is raw; that’s the best word to describe it.
The gifts from the women in the boma were so honest. Even children, our “special friends,” in town have been giving beaded gifts to us. It’s a beautiful part of their culture: to give a part of themselves to us as outsiders. Individuals are tied to their culture in a way that I haven’t experienced before. Individualism relies on choices, and choices here are incredibly limited by their culture and means, so the group culture seems to take the place of the unavailable choices in individuals. In the dances and the songs and the clothes and the jewelry, the idea of the Masai group carries through.

The African rainbow is filled with different colors.

Liz